Alrighty, space banditos. We've had the poll up for awhile, and had lots of responses. I'm going to go through them one by one and explain the pros and cons..then, you guys talk about it for a few days. We're coming up on a magical 100,000 posts, let's make sure we make the right choice on the array for that milestone.

Perks Model 31.5%: The most popular choice, unfortunately this model instills a "someone else will contribute" mentality. As I've seen in the past, when you give the user the choice between contributing or not, they will choose not most of the time. I don't believe this option has any chance of long term success. That's not to say I won't try it if that's what you guys want, but hear me out: no one is a hard-core user of the array. People pop in, they pop out. Having perks -sounds- nice until you realize very few people stay in the channel enough to fully utilize those perks. I don't think miners/donators would get enough 'value' to make their computing power 'worth' it to them compared to the standard user experience.Freemium model 18.8%: The second most popular choice. This model ensures that at a minimum, half of the database requires contribution of some kind in order to request it. I think this model has a decent, if somewhat low, chance of success. It would definitely be a slow burn acquiring miners/donators, as they know all they have to do to get what they want is wait a week for the list to rotate their desired videos to free.Keeping the array as it is 14.6%: The third most popular choice. This is definitely the easiest thing to do. Only having the array run for a couple of days once or twice a month max doesn't really impact our hosting costs, but it also doesn't utilize the array to it's fullest site-supporting potential. It does end the debate on whether the array should be able to support itself, or the site for the matter.Minimum-mining model: This option strikes a nice balance between keeping everything free to request, and making sure the array generates a minimum amount of return. We could start off small, something like the equivalent of just two 1070's worth of hashrate at any given time, and the array would remain online 24/7.Figure out an easier way to donate 6.1%: Not going to happen. Staying anonymous ain't easy.It's time to stop 4.5%: I will admit I have thought this many times. While this option was only a small portion of the results…. it stands out.Single use model 1.3%: Appears to be wildly unpopular, and ruins the original purpose of the arrayAllow donations in XMR: Done. Added address to donation page.P2P: No. The array was created to free ourselves from the risk of P2P.Simple ads on the site 0.3%: Tried it. No ad service that pays in cryptocurrency pays anything decent. We once ran an ad campaign for 3 weeks and made 38 cents.

Scaling enabled, reboots once a day to get a new IP (3AM CST) to get around mab limit, deducts hashes on file completion instead of request, and a few other fixes. Get testing! This phase will go the entire week, unless any issues are found that require taking the array down to fix.

Just a reminder, if you don't use the array but want to support the site, feel free to leave name box blank and mine when you can.

R: 28 / I: 0 (sticky)

New array system test

You might have heard the thepiratebay is doing a trial of a web-based mining system in order to support themselves. Like us, because of their illicit nature, no traditional advertisers will touch them, and those that will, well, suck (popunders, malware, etc).

To revive the array once more, we are going to try the same. Our previous mining system was clunky and excluded old devices and phones, while this system is easy and works on everything.

*** EditSo I have some initial results for everyone to chew on. The array ran from 9/21 to 9/22, for about 40 hours before hitting the 100GB limit on mab. At which time, it would have needed to log off vpn and log back on, in order to continue. I felt we got enough testing in.

672 files uploaded. 85.46 Million total hashes submitted, of which the accepted hashes netted us 0.01329 XMR. So roughly $1.20 generated. This is actually a decent result. If that were to continue, *edit fucked up math $21/month would cover the array's costs and a little extra. I feel the overall response was good to the experience, there are a few things to fix like deducting shares upon file completion instead of request and other quality of life things.

The array still struggles to scale well with more than 20 active users. It's simply a limitation of the design. This probably limits the overall potential of the mining system, and at the current rate wouldn't come close to paying for the site's cost, which is where all the content on the array comes from in the first place.

An idea I had was the scale the required hashes to the size of the file. After all, it's doesn't seem quite fair that a user can jam the queue with a 650mb video for just 25 shares, and just means those with more powerful devices can outpace others and lock down the uploads. Anyway, thread is unlocked and we can talk about this whole thing.

R: 25 / I: 3

50,000 posts celebration!

To commemorate 50,000 posts since we migrated to the new site, we're doing another clips4sale vote.

Voting has closed! Since there was no specific clips4sale clip mentioned, I went with "Let me decide." I preset two kiyomi vids which I don't believe have been posted here before. At least, I didn't have them. Enjoy!

Protip: In the past I've bought pre-paid debit cards in order to do this kind of thing anonymously. Recently, there has been a mandate insisting that before activation of a card like this, the user's identity must be verified. This is the first time I've run into this. At first, I thought it was just the brand I bought (netSpend), so I went out and bought another (greendot) but I ran into the same problem of not being able to verify because it actually checks the SSN. However, I was able to circumvent this requirement by using the information at the bottom of this wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_number and a fake address from http://www.fakeaddressgenerator.com/World/us_address_generator

Edit 6-13-2017: Miner support page and package has been updated. CPU Mining has been removed. Package now mines to a wallet address I use for mining with my own hardware, to prevent small transaction spam from what will almost certainly be a fairly small amount of users.

In addition, mining is now required to use the array. I know this is going to be contentious. In fact, I'm betting it's the death knell of the whole system. I simply don't think the 30+ constant users of the array will comply with it. We have about 2 and a half weeks to see if users can swallow actually having to contribute to get the array to tirelessly work for them.

R: 37 / I: 1 (sticky)

Ads & support the site discussion.

Edit: Alright, I think I've found a happy medium. Instead of adfoc.us, which advertises what can only be described as grayware, and adbit.co, whose banners paid for shit unless they were bid on, we're trying out coinurl for both link redirects and banners. All mab.to and files.fm links will automatically be redirected if clicked, though you can still copy and paste the link if you don't like redirects. Coinurl seems to be much more tame, for instance the redirects so far have linked to things like T-shirt hell and the like instead of shitty browser extensions. Let me know what you think. This seems like a good way to help the site support itself, while being generally low-key and easy to avoid if you don't want to participate.

Attached some stats for reference. Alright, so, let's continue the old site's thread on ads, and supporting the site.

As you can see, it's quite clear the majority of users are using adblockers. I get it. I do the same basically everywhere. If we had adblockers that worked on TV/radio we'd use those too. Nobody wants to see ads. No one is interested in their products/services. That's fine, even if you all magically found it in your hearts to disable your blockers, the ads pay for shit. So, effective soon(tm), there will no longer be ads on the site.

Now, to the matter at hand. Site continuity, and supporting the costs that go into it. I had an epiphany. Please gets you nowhere. Please disable your adblockers, please use the faucet, please donate. Please is a dead word with a userbase like this. I could say please until I'm blue in the face, but the vast majority will ignore me. So here we are.

Effective this weekend, the array will give out links that are through a link shorterner. These kinds of sites pay out 100x more than a fully-utilized faucet or banner ad network ever could. Is it scummy? Fuck yes it's scummy. Beyond "profiting" (I'm really just looking for break even on costs) from other's copyrighted material, these sites advertise shitty browser extensions and things I never wanted to expose anyone to. I NEVER wanted to do something like this. I could have done this 6 months ago and made fucking bank.

I'm grasping at straws here. I get that you guys don't donate BTC directly, the vast majority have no clue about bitcoin or how it works, how to get it, how to send it. I get that you block banner ads, it's eye-rape and doesn't provide any additional value to you. I get why you don't use the faucet on the array, no one is forcing you and there are no penalties for not doing it.

So, beyond the change to the array, I'm also looking at a change to the site that might aggravate some of you. You might have heard of Lynxchan, another imageboard software. The developer has been in contact with me and I have to say, I really like the features he's implemented, plus the extra security it provides. But the real kicker, is he developed an extension for it that would allow me to dynamically run any links posted here through this new link shortener's api. That would mean in addition to the array giving passive revenue, ALL links posted here would do the same. This is about all I can come up with. It's the only way I can force you guys to support the site.

Could someone use this to direct to malware or other nefarious plans? Possibly. However the developer assures me he can make the original link viewable in a hover popup or title, so that you could see the original link before clicking the referral link. Could you still just copy and paste the link to get around the referral? Yeah, probably, but what I've learned so far is that our user base almost always goes the path of least resitance, so for those that are just die-hard not wanting to support the site at all, you could still do that, while the vast majority will just click the link and wait the 5 seconds to get to the content.

Please discuss.

R: 236 / I: 34

THIS IS THE ARRAY

UPDATE 6/21: mining requirement has been removed.

See a link you want but it's expired? Check the array! Most content posted to the board gets saved to the array so it's available after it expires from MAB. People don't take kindly to asking for re-ups of files that are available on the array. For those not familiar with IRC, it's quite simple. Use the web client link under the news page link on the sidebar, choose a nickname (or use the default generated one), enter #FODarray as the channel name, then connect. Type FODHELP for a detailed explanation of all the commands available. No !, /, or # prefixes are required for any commands. You may post any issues or comments about the array here. Here's a visual guide to using the array, if you need a little more explanation: http://i.imgur.com/mjx76NZ.png

The array isn't really for chatting though, wanna chat with the community? BBW-Chan's IRC channel is #bbw-chan on irc.rizon.net.